Here’s a recap of recent industry news worth noting:

Companies and Products

Anaren subsidiary Unicircuit was awarded a $40 million order from Lockheed Martin for microwave assemblies that will be used on the Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR). LRDR is part of a layered ballistic missile defense system for the U.S.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) granted MACOM "early termination" of the FTC's antitrust review of MACOM's planned acquisition of Applied Micro Circuits. That means the FTC has no concerns about the combination.

Peraso Technologies released the W120 WiGig chipset, targeting consumer electronics applications. The chipset supports eight transmit and receive antennas in various configurations and up to 4.6 Gbps data rates.  

Rogers introduced the RO4830™ laminates for 76 to 81 GHz auto radar applications. The new laminates can be processed with standard FR-4 circuit fabrication methods to achieve lower cost.

Tektronix introduced a wideband signal analyzer covering 16 kHz to 26.5 GHz with 800 MHz real-time bandwidth. With the internal RAID storage, the RSA7100A can record two hours of data at the full 800 MHz bandwidth.

Teledyne will acquire U.K-based e2v for approximately £620M ($789 million) in share value. Both companies' boards approved the deal, which must also be approved by e2v's shareholders.

WIN Semiconductors reported November revenue of NT$1,089 million (approximately $34.2 million), an increase of 4.3 percent sequentially and 2.4 percent above November of 2015. Year-to-date revenue (January through November 2016) was NT$12,527 million ($394 million), 14.6 percent greater than the same period in 2015.

Markets and Technology

5G — Europe plans to allocate 700 MHz spectrum for wireless broadband services, which will provide bandwidth for 5G. EU member states are to officially approve the plan on Tuesday, December 20.

Gazing into their crystal ball, ABI Research sees $200 billion in 5G service revenue in 2026. 5G will hold some 5 percent of total mobile subscriptions, compared to greater than 50 percent for LTE. 

IoT — ABI Research also forecasts that 4 billion IoT devices will be in use by 2025, blending both 3GPP and independent standards such as SIGFOX and LoRa. The value of chipset production will reach $2 billion in 2025.

Google relaunched an Android variant for IoT applications. Previously unveiled as Project Brillo in 2015, it's been renamed Android Things. Most smartphones run on Android.

Broadband — CableLabs is developing full duplex DOCSIS to enable symmetrical up/downstream rates of between 5 and 10 Gbps — at least in theory. CableLabs expects to begin trials by the end of 2017.

The change in presidential administrations will bring new faces to the FCC. The Senate adjourned for the year without renewing the term of FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel (Democrat), and chair Tom Wheeler announced he would resign on January 20, inauguration day. The incoming Republican-controlled commission is expected to overturn Tom Wheeler's initiatives, including net neutrality.

Autonomous Driving — Google's self-driving car venture — now called Waymo — has become a stand-alone business unit of parent Alphabet.

Michigan became the first state in the U.S. to enact legislation legalizing self-driving vehicles. However, there's a slight catch: only motor vehicle manufacturers like Ford qualify; Google's Waymo doesn't.

Light detection and ranging (lidar) imaging technology is a key sensor technology for self-driving vehicles, and companies are scrambling to develop or acquire a path to low cost lidar. To wit, Analog Devices and Infineon have acquired capabilities, and Velodyne just announced what the company terms a "breakthrough" solid-state lidar. 

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a proposed rulemaking requiring vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication systems be incorporated on all new light-duty vehicles. The DOT hopes to have the regulations in place by 2019, with implementation from 2021 to 2023. The system will be based on 802.11p and use the 5.850 to 5.925 GHz DSRC band.

Semiconductor Industry — IC Insights forecasts that the top five semiconductor firms excluding pure play foundries (i.e., Intel, Samsung, Qualcomm, Broadcom and SK Hynix) will hold 41 percent market share in 2016. This compares with 32 percent in 2006 and reflects industry consolidation.

Technology and Society — Something to consider: the growth of fake news once again raises the question whether a technology platform is responsible for what it enables.

Send feedback about the weekly report to me at glerude@mwjournal.com.

Have a good week.